Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

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Kasich Finds Sane, Smart Alter Ego

John Kasich of Ohio is one of the most conservative governors in the country. In many ways, he’s been absolutely abominable, including trying to ban collective bargaining for unions and lots of different voter suppression tactics. But he seems to have found rationality, at least momentarily:

Gov. John Kasich of Ohio announced Monday that he’s going to expand Medicaid drastically under Obama’s health care law, the highest-profile red-state governor to agree to the new program so far.

“I, as all of you know, am not a supporter of Obamacare,” Kasich said at a Monday press conference. “But I think this makes great sense for the state of Ohio.”

Kasich says the decision will free up money to spend on mental health and other services — since the feds will pay for most of the expansion costs — and will keep everyone else’s health insurance premiums down because there won’t be so many uninsured people going to emergency rooms for their medical care.

Turning down hundreds of millions, maybe billions, in federal funds that will give health insurance to huge numbers of people in their states, as Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal have done, is not just stupid. It’s also cruel, self-defeating and harmful not only to those people but to everyone else in the state that will benefit from them having access to health care.

MI Republican Gov. Rick Snyder wanted to create a state-run exchange but lost to the state legislative Republican wingnuts who enjoy a filibuster-proof majority in spite of our being a bluish/purple state (gerrymandering). So the feds will be setting their version up in Michigan.

Gov. Snyder also just announced he’ll be working to implement Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. He made a great math-centric argument – pointing out it’s no brainer through at least 2035 – not counting the economic benefits of universal coverage which he acknowledged exist (most wingnuts don’t do econ and therefore avoid/deny this fact).

The only state-level arguments opposing Medicaid expansion are incoherent; therefore some wingnut governors oppose such expansions.

A primary reason reason I voted for Gov. Snyder was that I was confident the only way the Republican legislature would yield to Obamacare is if one of their own in the governor’s office supported its introduction. Where Snyder’s been mostly a sane technocrat promoting optimal solutions; though with some exceptions which has him joining conservatives (just like we see exceptions from Barack Obama). However that’s not to say I look prescient; my confidence that was a prudent vote has been reduced. Gov. Snyder’s yet to succeed at getting a new bridge through the legislature and he joined legislative Republicans on the recent anti-union laws which passed in the lame-duck session late last year. So I currently have less confidence he’ll effectively fight to expand Medicaid or win if he does fight hard for passage.

We should recall that achieving near-universal healthcare coverage requires the Medicaid expansion feature where the SCOTUS knocked down the ability of the feds from mandating such to the states if they participate in the current Medicaid program. This was an under-reported loss from the SCOTUS’s Obamacare ruling.

Don’t worry, he’ll return to typical GOP governor form when he formally moves forward with his plan to scrap the state income tax in favor of an increased sales tax, in order to increase the freedom of poor people to support state government on their backs.

Turning down hundreds of millions, maybe billions, in federal funds that will give health insurance to huge numbers of people in their states, as Rick Perry and Bobby Jindal have done, is not just stupid. It’s also cruel, self-defeating and harmful not only to those people but to everyone else in the state that will benefit from them having access to health care.

States are the laboratories of democracy, which can be a real bummer if you happen to be one of the unfortunate rats trying to find the cheese in, say, Louisiana or Texas.